Nice! I take it you didn't have DOS machine in the 90s?
Stacker is what we'd call "full-disk compression" nowadays. That was a brief craze in the early 90s when disk space was much more expensive than today. By the time FAT32 came around in 1996ish, no one did this anymore. You'll probably want to reinstall the OS without it at some point. The only way it is of benefit is if your hard drive is so slow that the CPU having to compress/decompress is offset by accessing the disk less.

You're in luck with a game port as there is nothing to configure. It doesn't need a driver or IRQ. Programs that use it will either go through the BIOS or just access the hardware directly. The only way you will run into an issue is if you install another card that has a game port (sound card, io card) and have to figure out how to disable all but one of them. I don't know why your card has two ports and haven't seen that before, but presumably you want to plug into CN1.

CD-ROM support is in two parts. A driver specific to your CD-ROM drive goes in config.sys. A program that supports the ISO-9660 file system, etc. called Mscdex goes in autoexec.bat. Your system may be more interesting than average in that a 386 may not have a standard IDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM drive. So you'll definitely want to look in config.sys for a cd-rom driver (you'll know it's a cd-rom driver because it will have a /D: flag that is the same as the one given to mscdex in autoexec.bat) and back that up. If it is a standard ATAPI one, l0ts of people use the FreeDOS CD-ROM driver today rather than the original one it came with as it's optimized to use little memory.

Also, are you sure the card the cd-rom plugs into isn't a sound card?

After a few years of Home Computers, I got my first PC in June 1999 😀 Was about 13 then.. But even then, I found MS-DOS and the whole late 80's - early 90's computing scene very interesting 😁 .. but hence no internet, it was very difficult to find any useful info... so I gave it a rest for about 20 years 😀)

In any case, I tried the Gameport card before posting this thread, but only used the plug CN2, with no result (except that the bios settings got reset for some reason).
Will re-insert, and try CN1, and come back with (good) results hopefully 😀

Thank you!!

P.S.
Regarding the CD-ROM Controller card; it just has a "passthrough" for the analogic connector of the CD Drive, so you can plug your speakers into some RCA connectors in the back, when you want to listen to Audio CDs.. And only 1 IDE ribbon connector.
But there is sort of a weird thing with the PC Speaker, in that it sometimes can play more than "beep" music.. There are 2 games on it that have proper sound through the internal pc speaker that is plugged into the mobo... (TRISTAN Pinball, and some semi-3D winter games, game.. forgot what it's called).. Just thought i should mention this.

OMG! IT'S WORKING!!! 🤣 Thanks Jake!!
Compared to the Sidewinder Pro, this little joystick from 1992 is so bad! I love it! 🤣

I also took a picture of the controller that the cdrom plugs into

Tomorrow (after I recover from the overwhelming excitement 😀) ) I'll start poking the config and autoexec files, to see what makes the Cdrom "tick" 😁
Will probably come back with even more questions 🤣 😀

P.S.
Pictures of the FPU:

Yeah, that's a proprietary cd-rom card. Don't try upgrading the CD-ROM drive as it probably won't work.
Here's some documentation about it: https://arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/i/M-O/52418.htm
Looks like it's set for DMA 5, IRQ 10, and i/o address 0x300.
If you end up adding an ethernet card later, keep that in mind as it's common to use IRQ 10 and i/o address 0x300 for them, so you'll have to reconfigure one of the two cards.

Wow! Thanks!! Yes, I was planing on installing a network card at some point.. And I now realize that if the bios doesn't have IRQ settings that I can tweak, then it will all have to be done by jumpers. So I'll have to pick my cards very carefully.

Yes, the cd-rom is also a double speed Mitsumi brand. I tried putting the drive in a more modern PC (socket 775), but it wasn't detected.

But if I will install a sound card later on, that has an IDE header (was thinking of an [edit:[ESS AudioDrive ES1868F], that I recently got) ; then I will be able to use a normal CD-Rom with it... right?

You only have IRQ settings in the BIOS if it supports ISA Plug and Play, which yours does not.
IMO that's actually better because you don't have to worry about the BIOS stepping on you.
A lot of jumperless ISA cards still have a DOS configuration utility you can run to disable Plug and Play and configure the settings manually. So you don't have to stick to cards that use jumpers.
You might get into a situation where you might have to temporarily take out the cd-rom card to configure a network card for the very first time, though, if it came defaulted to 0x300.
For IDE sound cards, if you're certain it's IDE, in theory you could set the ide i/o port to 0x170 and its IDE IRQ to 15 and it would work just like a secondary IDE, but for a cd-rom only. Those ESS sound cards are actually an example of a card that comes with a config utility to set the IRQ, etc.

The ESS Datasheet says:
"The ES1868 AudioDrive® solution is a mixed-signal single-chip solution that adds 16-bit stereo sound and FM music synthesis to personal computers. It includes an embedded microprocessor, an OPL3™ superset ESFMTM music synthesizer, 16-bit stereo wave CODEC, 16-bit stereo music DAC, hardware master volume control, MPU-401 UART mode serial port, dual game port, full Plug and Play support, CD-ROM IDE interface, two serial port interfaces to external DSP and external ES689/ES69x wavetable music synthesizer, DMA control logic with FIFO, and ISA bus interface logic."

But what do you mean I have to be sure it's IDE? Aren't all PATA connectors, IDE ?

I think you're good to go on the ES1868. I meant to look out for cards that, like the Mitsumi you have now (aside from the fact it isn't a full sound card) has a physically compatible connector with IDE but doesn't use the ATAPI protocol. Some SoundBlaster Pros 16s and clones have these non-standard connectors but I think that ESS would be ok.

Two port isa games cards where not uncommon. I have two of them.

Today I tasted Wacky Wheels with 2 joysticks, and am pleased to say that it worked great 😁
The only thing is that it won't allow more than 4 buttons (between both players). It's either 1 player w/ 4 buttons ; or 2 players w/ 2 buttons.
I recon this is a DOS limitation.. Is there any way around it?

B24Fox wrote on 2020-07-17, 16:10:

Today I tasted Wacky Wheels with 2 joysticks, and am pleased to say that it worked great 😁
The only thing is that it won't allow more than 4 buttons (between both players). It's either 1 player w/ 4 buttons ; or 2 players w/ 2 buttons.
I recon this is a DOS limitation.. Is there any way around it?

4 buttons was the max DOS could natively recognize for joysticks IIRC. If you wanted to use a controller with more, you'd need something like a DOS version of Joy2Key.

B24Fox wrote on 2020-07-17, 16:10:

Today I tasted Wacky Wheels with 2 joysticks, and am pleased to say that it worked great 😁
The only thing is that it won't allow more than 4 buttons (between both players). It's either 1 player w/ 4 buttons ; or 2 players w/ 2 buttons.
I recon this is a DOS limitation.. Is there any way around it?

There are some joysticks that use an AT keyboard pass-through cable to send extra info — things like Gravis Phoenix, Firebird and Thunderbird come to mind, or more complex setups from Thrustmaster. They also have software to program all the keys to use with a specific game.

There are also gameport joysticks with many buttons like Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro, but they are digital and either won't work under DOS or will only allow you to use 4 buttons.

I tested my Sidewinder 3D Pro with LHX and Highway Hunter, and it does actually work 😀
I'll resume working on the 386 in a few days, as soon as I get some free time.
I really want to demystify the CONFIG file 😀 Maybe post it's contents here so you guys can help me understand how it works and what code must be kept for the reinstall.

B24Fox wrote on 2020-07-15, 22:11:

[...]

But what do you mean I have to be sure it's IDE? Aren't all PATA connectors, IDE ?

All PATA connectors are IDE, but not all 40p headers are PATA connectors, as you've already discovered with your proprietary Mitsumi CD-Rom: that definitely isn't IDE.

IDE did not originally support removable media, that required the ATAPI-standard. Before ATAPI there were a lot of non-interoperable proprietary standards, all loosely based on IDE, but most definitely not the same. The only standards-based option before ATAPI was SCSI, which was more expensive and so less used. That's why you had sound cards with one, two, three or sometimes even four different sets of headers.

Regardless of connector these are NOT all IDE:

Only the leftmost is.

dionb wrote on 2020-07-20, 09:56:

All PATA connectors are IDE, but not all 40p headers are PATA connectors, as you've already discovered with your proprietary Mit […]
Show full quote

B24Fox wrote on 2020-07-15, 22:11:

[...]

But what do you mean I have to be sure it's IDE? Aren't all PATA connectors, IDE ?

All PATA connectors are IDE, but not all 40p headers are PATA connectors, as you've already discovered with your proprietary Mitsumi CD-Rom: that definitely isn't IDE.

IDE did not originally support removable media, that required the ATAPI-standard. Before ATAPI there were a lot of non-interoperable proprietary standards, all loosely based on IDE, but most definitely not the same. The only standards-based option before ATAPI was SCSI, which was more expensive and so less used. That's why you had sound cards with one, two, three or sometimes even four different sets of headers.

Regardless of connector these are NOT all IDE:

Only the leftmost is.

Oooooohh!!! 😳 Now i get it!!
Also, always wondered what was the thing with those multiple "IDE" header sound cards!
Thanks dionb!

Are there also more types of IDE Hard Drives?
..i mean.. i've also heard stuff like LBA, non-LBA, CHS (i think), and some more "standars" (?)

B24Fox wrote on 2020-07-20, 10:36:

Are there also more types of IDE Hard Drives?
..i mean.. i've also heard stuff like LBA, non-LBA, CHS (i think), and some more "standars" (?)

Not in the same way. IDE always remained fundamentally compatible at an interface level - it's basically just a subset of the ISA-bus, which is why it was so cheap and simple to implement in PCs (and why non-PC tended to use other interfaces more). The stuff you're talking about is next level up: how the drive geometry was addressed. CHS is simple Column, Heads and Sectors. That worked fine until drives grew so big that the required parameters would have been larger than the 8-bit numbers used to describe them. To get around that, a 'logical' addressing scheme was used which was translated to the real geometry within the drive. Now, if your BIOS didn't understand how that works, large drives would not work. But it had nothing to do with the interface itself. That is why you can use things like XTIDE to support large drives on old systems using the original controllers.

If you want to go into all the limitations and what they mean, read up on pages such as this:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

If you don't want to do that, the golden rule is stay period-correct. You only hit HDD size limits when your HDD (or CF card) is significantly larger than was common when the PC was released.

Wow! XTIDE looks like such an awesome hack!
And I even forgot that Compact Flash, is actually IDE compatible! .. I was in between getting a CF to IDE, or, SD to IDE adaptor.. But i think i'm gonna stick to the simple things:
use the original 106MB HDD as drive C --for the sound nostalgia -- , and get a CF adapter, with a CF no bigger than 512mb, so i can use MS-DOS 3.31 ; as i heard this version adds support for hard drives up to 512MB, but doesn't eat up too much of the ... memory thing.. the base 640 kb... (don't know what it's called..) , like DOS versions 4.x and above.
Not gonna lie, a bigger HDD would be nice, and i actually have a 1.2GB one connected atm, and it works fine, but I would really like to have a ver. 3.x DOS on this thing, and leave ver. 6.22 for the 486 that i'll be building next.
I don't REALLY know if there actually are any benefits to an older MS-DOS, over the 6.22, but..